devashish_paul wrote:
By the way, what is the US record now?
As for Milton, its also really easy for travel given where he lives too! Its about as cheap a location as he could end up with!!!! No jetlag and body adjustments either. This should be very awesome.
By the way, what is the typical "addtional distance" that the best riders ride due to not being "on the line" for the entire hour? Or put another way, what is good "additional distance"?
US record is still Zirbel's 53.037. That record certainly could/should fall. I had planned to take a crack at it either this fall or early next year (likely Aguas, likely with a camp at Colo Springs), but that was before Covid. The HUUB guys had talked about heading to Bolivia to try to set a bunch of records - and it would have made sense to include Ashton, who I think could for sure break Zirbel's record with only a bit of focused preparation. I thought - and still think (at least for maybe another year or so) - that I could do it; Zirbel just left so, so much on the table in terms of optimization; by power he should have ridden at least another 1km further. IIRC, he did somewhere between 420-440 (he's a big dude...). But on a Diamondback Serios? In 53x13? With a stock front end? I mean, it's astonishing... Thin air helps... A LOT.
But Covid has also changed my perspective on what bike riding and racing means to me. I've been off the track for so long it seems very strange to think about an hour attempt. Master's Worlds coming back to LA next October is appealing, but it's also still quite hard to have any confidence that things will return to "normal." Canada is much more normal in that regard, though still, one has to wonder how track cycling will (or won't) survive Covid. Without the Olympics, will it? It was already super niche, and I don't know that I believe Tokyo games will happen, and - even if they do - will track world cups be a thing again? Lots of athletes crowded together indoors? I just don't know... With so much uncertainty in general, the sway of these types of things seems ... different. At least to me. I know that was a bit of a tangent...
In terms of how much of a difference a good or bad line makes, it certainly can add up. Probably easier to give some perspective on what a "good" line or a "bad" line measures out to.
The red line - aka the sprinters line - is somewhere between 70-90cm above the black line. The blue line is 5m above the black. The total difference in length riding the blue line - which would be beyond bad; it would be truly atrocious - is 15m over a single lap (or an additional 6%). Riding the red line would be an additional approx. 6m (2.4%). You can do the math yourself, but plenty of sites have done it for you -
https://www.trackcyclingacademy.com/...around-the-velodrome.
Assuming that a bad line kind of floats between black/red, I think you'd be looking at likely an additional approx. 1% additional distance. You'll ALSO suffer some losses from scrubbing speed on the lateral movement. I think 1% at the very least is likely for the difference between, for example, Bigham and Lionel on the same track. Bigham's 53.5 on 350w is truly remarkable. That's a combination of incredible discipline, optimization, and execution. IIRC, it was within like 0.1% of what he predicted he could do based on testing. Maybe even less. Most of those HUUB guys (except the bigger Tanfields) have CdAs down under 0.18. There's rumors that Archibald even got under 0.16, which is insane. In March, after a fair bit of refinement, I was just a shade under 0.2. While it would have been a huge investment, I was seriously considering the new Wattshop front end, which would have given me the potential to get under 0.19. Wiggins was 0.185, IIRC, from what Josh P told me.
I doubt Lionel is under 0.2, but he might be. At least, for the start. Will be interesting to see how his position degrades (or doesn't) over the hour. As DTD said, there's a ton more optimization that they could have done if this was a serious attempt at the hour. Given the number of strong Canadian TTers and also just how good their TP team is, the fact that the HR is <49km is actually quite shocking. I mean, yeah altitude and all of that, but our very own Kevin Metcalfe's 55-59 HR is notably further than the current Canadian HR. The fact that a triathlete (even one whose physiology and training regime biases him towards such an attempt) is even a consideration for breaking this record essentially "on a lark" still surprises me.
Interesting aside, back before the current hour craze kicked off in full swing, Sebi thought about making a go at the overall HR. Back when Jensie set the record at 51.1. Sebi was extremely confident he could have bested that mark, but he said, "why? to what end?" And I suppose that's really a big part of why the Canadian mark is so low. The HR sucks to train for. Sucks to do. And it's expensive. And no one really cares, at least from a financial perspective. I do hope Ganna goes for it. But I'd rather see him go sub-4. But we shall see. Covid has changed so much about the sporting world, and I don't think it's done yet.
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